Midway: Chapter 10

  “Alright Bao, lets’ take it from the top of the… fourth page.  Ready?   Ok, One, and a two, and a three….”   Uzodimma blew into his trumpet and crisp, jazz infused notes poured out of the brass horn as his fingers deftly pressed and depressed the three keys, his face contorting with the different air flows required for the higher and lower notes.  At the same time and with great focus, the young girl blew intently on the reed of her saxophone, playing the song along with him.  Sometimes their notes matched up perfectly on the melody, producing beautiful harmonies; other times their parts wandered in different directions to accompany each other in their own ways.

  Music was considered an essential part of life on the New Horizon.  It was enjoyed much more by some than by others, and not everybody continued with it into their adulthood, but basic musical training on at least one instrument was a required part of everybody’s basic education.  Most of the instruments used were communal instruments brought from Earth, which had been carefully and lovingly preserved by a succession of technicians and artisans, who had devoted their brain and body hours to their careful maintenance.  

  Despite their best efforts though, some of the instruments were inevitably damaged beyond repair.  In the lulls between their repair and refurbishing duties, these music preservers lovingly, and with all due care, diligence, and precision, crafted brand new instruments which would then be bestowed upon the most accomplished musician onboard of that particular instrument.  There was no official rating system, but in general the quality of instrument you were provided with generally tended to match your level of ability.  Although the practice of creating a new instrument and bestowing it on its most talented player was celebrated, it was nonetheless avoided at all costs in favour of refurbishment, since the creation of brand new instruments inevitably dipped into the ship's ever precious reserves of raw materials.

  Uzodimma Adewunmi was not one of these treasured craftspeople, but his work was intertwined with all elements of the ship's music program.  He was a very dark skinned man, with short and curly black hair and eyes as black as the perpetual night out of the ship's windows.  He was a slender built thirty eight year old man, with a flat nose which gave him a look of always appearing mildly amused.  Music was Uzodimma’s life, and although he was not an instrument craftsman, he was the preeminent musician on board.  It was a natural fit for him to serve as the band teacher, and he was responsible for the musical education of all the children and their basic training on instruments.  

  He was a master musician and could play all of the instruments onboard to varying degrees of proficiency.  As teacher, he also conducted private lessons for those who needed extra instruction relative to the other children, as well as for those students whom he believed to have a natural talent beyond that of the other students.  These pupils he believed had the capacity to become a true master of their instrument if they were willing to invest the required time and effort.  This private tutoring served as his early recruitment program for the ship’s part time professional orchestra.  Membership in this group was a cherished position because participation in the orchestra granted one exemption from body hours of work elsewhere on ship.  Their talents were admired by the rest of the crew, and their performances were thoroughly appreciated as well.

  Young Bao was one such special student, and in addition to Uzodimma tutoring her on the classical music which she was taught in the basic band class, he was currently also giving her special instruction in jazz band, an even more elite group of musicians than the professional orchestra.  She was much too young to join the actual group; he was pushing her, and she was impressing him by rising to the challenge.  The jazz band was meeting right after his session with Bao, and he was hoping that he could arrange for her to stick around and sit in on their practice once her lesson was finished.

  Music was one of those things which from a strictly practical perspective could be said to be a waste of time, energy, and resources.  But from the very beginning of the New Horizon mission, it was well understood that simply preserving the knowledge of the old world could not alone constitute the preservation and transmission of a culture.  It was understood that if raw knowledge was the only thing which was preserved, then what remained would be cold and soulless.  That is why a special concerted emphasis was made to preserve as much of all the arts as possible on the New Horizon’s long voyage.  From their band and instrument programs, to the visual arts program where the removable corridor panels all along every hallway were painted and repainted to decorate the ship, a passion for the arts were kept alive one corridor panel or instrument at a time.  Much like how a culture is a blend of art and technology, so too a person is a blend of feeling and reason; it was understood that the New Horizon too needed to be a place that blended the sentimental and the intellectual.

  “Wonderful Bao!   Just wonderful!  You really nailed that last section, you’ve shown great improvement since our last lesson.  You must have been practicing a lot, I’m proud of you!”

  Bao feigned a smile, which then declined into a frown.  “Thank you,” she said, but only obligingly.

  “What’s bothering you Bao?  You seem as pleased as ever when you’re playing but now, right after you seem so sad again.  What’s wrong?”  Uzodimma asked with genuine interest.  He wasn’t concerned about her; she was after all a solid and vibrant young girl.   Naturally if something was bothering her he wished he could help her with whatever it was though.  She was precious to him.

  “I can’t stop thinking about something Johannes said in class earlier today… we were studying Earth religions and beliefs, and… well, in general I guess why people used to believe such weird things.  I asked Johannes why people believed things that were so obviously wrong.  He explained about how people come to have the beliefs that they do, and why... it's hard to explain Uzo...”  Bright as she was, the poor girl was wrestling with how to summarize something she hadn’t completely understood.

   “What didn’t you understand?” he asked.

  “Well,” she gently nibbled on her bottom lip trying to figure out how to articulate her issue.   “It’s not that I didn’t understand as much as…  Well, it just bothered me.”

  Uzodimma chuckled in as much of a non-derisive way as was possible.  He certainly understood that feeling pretty well himself.  “Alright, so what about it bothered you then?”

  “Well... I asked him how anyone could believe such silly things and he told me, but… the same things could be said about what I’ve been taught and think…” she was struggling to grapple with hypothetical dilemmas well beyond her young intellect, and which have plagued humanity since it first developed the intellectual maturity and capacity to articulate such questions in the first place.  But the very fact of her determination to figure it out was one of the best indicators of how bright she was; her compulsion to reach beyond herself and beyond her capacity.

  “Go on...” Uzodimma encouraged her. 

  Her eyes brightened, half with excitement and half with concern as she turned her head, her eyes looking right into his, “well then how can I be sure that anything I know isn't silly like what they believed?”   She was distressed; she was wrestling with an intellectual breakthrough just on the horizon of her intellectual capacities.  She had just had her first major fracture in her world-view and had become aware of it in an abstract sense, separate from herself.  She was experiencing the birth of the seed of doubt which exists in the hearts of all born skeptics. 

  He reached over and pulled the disoriented child against him and gave her a firm and lingering hug.  “I’m proud of you Bao, most people who get to the point you’re talking about take many more years to get where you are.  Sadly… some never do.”  He pulled her away so that he could look into her eyes.  “You’re different now.  You’ll never be the same again, nor will the world around you ever look quite the same.   You will never find satisfying answers to your deepest questions Bao.  Never stop looking though, continually strive to reach ever closer approximations of the perfect knowledge you’ll spend the rest of your life looking for.   

  “Take nothing on faith Bao, try to learn for yourself and understand yourself.  If you can see your biases when investigating the universe, it will help you see through them as much as possible.   Always be mindful of the difference between what the world is telling you, and what you want to be true.”  She was frightened by the immensity of suddenly seeming to not know anything; so he pulled her against him again and hugged her tightly.

  “Congratulations Bao,” proclaimed Maharet Sengupta from the doorway to which she had silently arrived.  “You’re officially a skeptic now.  You’ve taken a first step into a larger and more complicated world.  It is a world of far less certainty I’m afraid, but one of far more accuracy.  Uzo and I value the latter more and I think you will come to as well.”  She was leaning up against the door frame with her arms folded.  

  The old woman always made Bao a little uncomfortable; she was intimidated by the matriarch’s status as one of the three most powerful and influential people on the ship.  She could be too strict too, but she was far from abusive so Bao rarely complained.  What really made Bao uncomfortable about Maharet was simply the way she looked.  She seemed elemental somehow, like a creature from some ancient myth, with almond brown skin, long bone white hair, and piercing green eyes.  Bao always thought she looked like a witch, but she’d never shared that particular observation with anyone.

  Maharet unfolded her arms, pushed herself off of the doorframe, and began moving into the room towards them.  She sat down beside them at the grand piano which was the show piece of the band room.   “Why don’t you join in on our practice today Bao,” Maharet raised a questioning and mildly mischievous eyebrow at Uzodimma.  “Maybe Uzo could help you join in with us?”  

  “Wonderful idea Maharet!” Uzodimma beamed.